I walked into the noodle shop where I have breakfast every morning. Something unusual happened. The wife of the shop owner was not there! Usually, she would be sitting like a steamed red bean dumpling behind the cash machine, her eyes scrutinizing every customer, fearing that they would run away without payment. Her third eye behind the skull supervising her husband who works in the kitchen, fearing that he would flirt or run away with the pretty server from the country. But today, even the country girl is missing!
"What happened?" I asked. The boss made an angry and disappointing sign, serving my noodle himself.
"You are the only person who does not know this in Hangzhou! Wang Manliang died! Today is his funeral. His ordered his body to be cremated and the ash to be sent to Rongfa Farm to feed the chicken. The eggs of that farm have been pre-sold for the next 5 years."
Wan Manliang is the most famous person in Hangzhou. You don't see him on TV, read him in the papers or hear any official news about him. But his name is on every one's lips in each little restaurant, in secretive blogs, on both the police's surveillance and protection lists. This in itself is remarkable. Because people of Hangzhou are usually not easily impressed by anyone.
Hangzhou is a city that is blessed with everything and cursed because it has everything. It sits at the southern end of the Grand Canal through which the emperors shipped the most beautiful girls and the finest silk, rice, fish and tea to the North. Its picturesque mountains, lakes and gardens attract suicidal lovers and scholarly men. A few hundred years ago, the Song Dynasty emperor, chased by the barbarians from the Mongolian plain, settled in Hangzhou. His desperate generals opened the dikes and dams holding back the waters of the Yellow River in order to decimate the oncoming Jurchen invaders. The emperor brought with him the harsh northern accent, useless officials, and hopeless romantics to this mild and soft city. The emperor thought in contempt of the person who had the stupid idea to dig a 1000 km canal to deal with the lengthy and costly logistics. He regretted that he only found this paradise on earth after losing half of the country. But isn't there an old saying "No pain, no gain"?
Appreciative of comfort, loving the decadence and proudly so are the people of Hangzhou. At best, the realization of the most ambitious dreams would bring you to Hangzhou. Why bother to become a bee when you are already in the honey hole? The people here spend their time touting tourists, eating refined food, drinking tea, gossiping and hating the Shanghainese because they are richer but frugal and refuse to be cheated.
The people of Hangzhou have seen very one that is famous: the most famous poet who happened to be its mayor; the most famous general got murdered by the most famous traitor; the most famous young revolutionaries died for the biggest truth or illusion; the most famous politicians and their mistresses (Mao had two villas built at the most exclusive spots around the lake); the most famous opera and movie stars; the most famous prostitute that has a higher-calling than each one of us; and even the most magical snake who falls in love with a man. All of them left their traces with tombs, temples, villas, poems, caligraphy, songs, legends, slogans, rumors and confusions. To say that there is information, culture and fame overkill is not overstated at all. People here are indifferent.
However, for some really wierd reasons, none of the famous people that left their names in Hangzhou was from Hangzhou. Sadly, Hangzhou, like a busy mid-wife, does not have her own proud son and daughter. This is the biggest concern of the major of Hangzhou! Unlike Shaoxing, though small and tucked away, people know Lu Xun who wrote those typical characters that symbolize that town. Take the beggar-hooligan character A-Q for example, all the places he went to in Lu Xun's novel have been developed into tourist spots, creating serious competition against Hangzhou. The convent where he tried to harass the young nuns was the most famous and they charge 50 RMB for the entrance fee; the restaurant where he begged became a national culinary chain and those boiled beans are sold in eye-catching packaging in every supermarket; the small crumbing temple where he slept became a place of worship where country women pray for having a son as their first born so that they don't pay a fine to give a second try; the big, beautifully carved bed of the county scholar's wife is the most sough after decorative furniture and culture symbol in high-end brothels in Shanghai.
It is high time for Hangzhou to have her own character.
